‘Yield, Venetian dog!’ the man snarled.
‘Your first mistake,’ replied Ezio. ‘Never insult a Florentine by mistaking him for a Venetian.’
The captain’s reply was to bring a savage left-armed blow ringing down towards Ezio’s head, but Ezio was ready for it and raised his own left arm, letting the cutlass blade slide harmlessly down the length of the bracer and off into the air. The captain hadn’t expected this and was thrown off balance. Ezio tripped him and flung him headlong into the reservoir in the hold below.’
‘Help, Effendi! I cannot swim!’ the captain burbled as he surfaced.
‘Then you had better learn,’ Ezio told him, turning away to cut at two more pirates who were almost upon him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that his own two sailors had succeeded in lowering their buckets on ropes into the reservoir and that now, joined by a handful more of their shipmates, similarly equipped, they were beginning to get the fire under control.
But the most ferocious fighting had moved to the rear of the ship, and there the Ottomans were getting the worst of it. Ezio realized that the Berbers had no desire for the Anaan to burn, for that way they’d lose their prize; so they were letting Ezio’s sailors get on with the job of dousing the fire, while they concentrated on taking the ship.
His mind moved fast. They were badly outnumbered, and he knew that the Anaan’s crew, tough men as they were, were not trained fighters. He turned to a stack of unlit torches stowed under a hatchway in the bow. Leaping over, and seizing one, he thrust it into the dying flames of the fire, and once it had taken, he threw it with all his force into the further of the two Berber ships lying alongside. Then he seized another and repeated the action. By the time the Berbers aboard the Anaan realized what was going on, each of their ships was well ablaze.
It was a calculated risk, but it paid off. Instead of fighting for control of their prey, and realizing that their captain was nowhere to be seen, the pirates panicked, and beat a way back to the gunwale, as the Ottomans, taking heart, renewed their own efforts and launched a counter-attack, lashing out with sticks, swords, hatchets, belaying-pins and whatever else came to hand.
In another fifteen minutes they had driven the Berbers back to their own ships and cast off, cutting the grappling irons free with axes, and using poles to push the burning galleys away. The Ottoman captain barked a number of rapid orders, and soon the Anaan was clear. Once order had been re-established, the crew set about swabbing the decks of blood and stacking the bodies of the dead. Ezio knew that it was against their religion to cast a body overboard. He just hoped the rest of the journey wouldn’t take long.
The Berber captain, a soggy mess, was hauled from the reservoir. He stood on the deck, abject and dripping.
‘You’d better disinfect that water,’ Ezio said to the Anaan’s captain, as the pirate chief was led away in irons.
‘We have enough drinking water for our needs in barrels – they will take us as far as Athens,’ the captain replied. Then he drew a small leather purse from the pouch at his side. ‘This is for you,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
‘I’m refunding your fare,’ said the captain. ‘It’s the least I can do. And when we reach Athens I’ll see to it that your feat is spoken of. As for your onward journey, rest assured that everything will be arranged for you.’
‘We shouldn’t have relaxed,’ said Ezio.
The captain looked at him. ‘You are right. Perhaps one should never relax.’
‘You are right,’ Ezio replied, sadly.
5
Athens prospered under the Turks, though as he walked the streets and visited the monuments and temples of the Greek Golden Age, now being rediscovered and revered in his own country, and saw with his own eyes the statues and buildings which were inspiring his friends Michelangelo and Bramante in Rome, Ezio understood something of the proud resentment which gleamed unmistakably in the eyes of several men and women of the local population. But he was fêted by Ma’Mun, the Ottoman captain’s brother-in-law, and his family, who showered him with gifts and urged him to stay.
His stay was longer than he had wanted it to be in any case, since unseasonable storms had boiled up in the Aegean north of Serifos, battering the cluster of islands to the south of Athens and effectively closing the port of Piraeus for a month or more. Never had such tempests been seen at this time of year. Street prophets inevitably muttered about the end of the world, a topic much discussed at the time of the half millennium in 1500. In the meantime, Ezio, having no interest in such things and only chafing against the delay, brooded over the maps and notes he had brought with him, and vainly tried to glean intelligence on the Templars’ movements in the area, and in the region south and east of Greece.
At one celebration in his honour he made the acquaintance of a Dalmatian princess and had a dalliance with her, but it was no more than that, a dalliance, and his heart remained as isolated as it had been for so long. He had ceased, he told himself, to look for love. A home of his own, a real home, and a family – these held no place in the life of an Assassin Mentor. Ezio had read something, dimly understood, of the life of his remote forebear in the Brotherhood, Altaïr ibn-La’Ahad. He had paid dearly for having a family. And even though Ezio’s own father had managed it, he too had paid a bitter price in the end.
But at last – not too soon for the impatient Ezio – the winds and the seas abated and were replaced with the fine weather of spring. Ma’Mun had made all the arrangements for his onward passage to Crete, and the same ship would take him further – as far as Cyprus. This vessel was a warship, a four-masted kogge, the Qutaybah, with one of its lower decks armed with a line of ten cannon on each side, and more guns in emplacements in the hull fore and aft. In addition to lateen sails, she was square-rigged, European style, on the main and mizzen masts; and there was an oar-deck below the cannon, thirty oars to a side.
Chained to one of them was the Berber captain Ezio had tangled with on the Anaan.
‘You will be free from the need to defend yourself on this ship, effendi,’ Ma’Mun told Ezio.
‘I admire it. It has something of the European design about it.’
‘Our Sultan Bayezid admires much that is gracious and useful in your culture,’ replied Ma’Mun. ‘We can learn a great deal from each other, if we try.’
Ezio nodded.
‘The Qutaybah carries our Athens envoy to a conference at Nicosia, and will dock at Larnaca in twenty days. The captain only stops at Heraklion to take on water and supplies.’ He paused. ‘And I have something for you …’
They were seated, drinking sharbat, in Ma’Mun’s office in the port. The Turk now turned to a huge iron-bound chest which stood against the far wall, taking from it a map. ‘This is precious, as all maps are, but it is a special gift from me to you. It is a map of Cyprus drawn up by Piri Reis himself. You will have time there.’ He held up his hands as Ezio began to object, as politely as he could. The further east you travelled, the less urgency there seemed to be about time. ‘I know! I am aware of your impatience to reach Syria but the kogge will only take you so far, and we must arrange your onward transport from Larnaca. Fear not. You saved the Anaan. We will be suitably grateful for that act. No one will get you to your destination faster than we.’
Ezio unrolled the map and examined it. It was a fine, detailed work. He thought that if he was indeed obliged to spend time on that island, he knew from clues he had already picked up in his father’s archives that Cyprus was not without interest to the Assassins, in the history of their eternal struggle with the Templars, and that it could well be that there he would find clues that might help him.
He would make good use of his time at Cyprus, but he hoped he would not have to tarry there long, effectively controlled as it was by the Templars, whatever appearances might be to the contrary.
But it was to be a longer journey than anyone might have anticipated. Hardly had they set sail from Crete after their brief landing at He
raklion – a matter of no more than three days – than the winds began to rage again. Southerly this time, fierce and warm still from their long journey out of north Africa. The Qutaybah battled them bravely, but by degrees she was beaten back north up the Aegean, fighting her retreat through the tangle of islands of the Dodecanese. It was a week before the storms abated, not before claiming the lives of five mariners and an uncounted number of galley prisoners, who drowned at their oars. The ship put into Chios at last for a refit. Ezio dried his gear and cleaned his general equipment of any rust. The metal of his special weapons had never shown the least sign of oxidization in all the years he had had them. One of the many mysterious properties they had, which Leonardo had attempted to explain to him in vain.
Three precious months had been lost before the Qutaybah at last limped into the harbour of Larnaca. The envoy, who’d lost twenty pounds’ weight on the voyage, through seasickness and vomiting, and who’d long since missed his conference, made immediate arrangements to travel back to Athens by the most direct route, travelling overland as far as he could.
Ezio wasted no time in looking up the Larnaca agent, Bekir, whose name Ma’Mun had given him. Bekir was welcoming and even deferential. Ezio Auditore da Firenze. The famous rescuer of ships! He was already the talk of Larnaca. Auditore effendi’s name was on every lip. Ah – the question of passage to Tortosa. The nearest mainland port to Masyaf in Syria. Yes, yes of course. Arrangements will be placed in hand immediately – this very day! If the effendi will be patient, while the necessary wheels are set in motion … The best possible accommodations will be at his disposal …
The lodgings arranged for Ezio were indeed splendid – a large, light apartment in a mansion built on a low hill above the town, overlooking it and the crystal sea beyond. But after too much time had passed, his patience grew thin.
‘It is the Venetians,’ explained the agent. ‘They tolerate an Ottoman presence here, but only in a civil sense. The military authorities are, regrettably, wary of us. I feel that’ – the man lowered his voice – ‘were it not for the reputation of our Sultan, Bayezid, whose authority stretches far and whose power is mighty, we might not be tolerated at all.’ He brightened. ‘Perhaps you could help in your own cause, effendi.’
‘In what way?’
‘I thought, perhaps, that as a Venetian yourself …’
Ezio bit his lip.
But he was not a man to let time hang idly. While he waited, he studied Piri Reis’ map, and something drew him, something half remembered that he had read, to hire a horse and ride down the coast to Limassol.
Once there, he found himself wandering through the motte and bailey of the deserted castle of Guy de Lusignan, built during the crusades but now neglected, like some once useful tool its owner has forgotten to throw away. As he walked through its empty, draughty corridors and looked at the wildflowers growing in its courtyards, and the buddleia which clung to its crumbling ramparts, memories – at least, they seemed to be memories – prompted him to explore more deeply, to delve in the bowels of the keep, and the vaults beneath it.
Here, shrouded in crepuscular gloom, he found the desolate and empty remains of what had undoubtedly once been a vast archive. His lonely footfalls echoed in the dark labyrinth of rotting, empty shelving. The only occupants now were scuttling rats, whose eyes glinted suspiciously at him from dark corners as they scuttled away, giving him slanting, evil looks. And they could tell him nothing. He made as thorough a search as he could, but not a clue of what had been here remained.
Disheartened, he returned to the sunshine. The presence of a library here reminded him of the library he sought. Something was prompting him, though he could not put his finger on what it was. Stubbornly, he remained at the castle two days. Townspeople looked oddly at the dark, grizzled stranger who roamed their ruin.
Then Ezio remembered. Three centuries earlier, Cyprus had been the property of the Templars.
6
The Venetian authorities – or someone behind them – were clearly blocking his onward passage. This became obvious to him as soon as he confronted them. Florentines and Venetians might have been rivals, might have looked down on one another, but they shared the same country and the same language.
That cut no ice at all with the governor here. Domenico Garofoli was like a pencil – long, thin and grey. His black robes, exquisitely cut in the most costly damask, nevertheless hung from him like rags from a scarecrow. The heavy gold rings, set with rubies and pearls, clattered loosely on his bony fingers. His lips were so narrow you could hardly say they were there at all, and when his mouth was closed you could not see where it was in his face.
He was, of course, unfailingly polite – Ezio’s action had done much to warm Ottoman–Venetian relations in the region – but he was clearly unwilling to do anything. The situation on the mainland eastwards – beyond the coastal towns that clung to the shore of the Mediterranean like the fingertips of a man hanging from a precipice – was fraught with danger. The Ottoman presence in Syria was mighty, and further Ottoman ambitions westwards much feared. Any mission not sanctioned by official diplomacy could trigger an international incident of the most dire proportions. That, at least, was Garofoli’s excuse.
There was no way Ezio was going to find allies among his countrymen here.
Ezio listened, and listened, sitting politely with his hands on his knees as the governor droned on in a desiccated voice. And decided to take matters into his own hands.
That very evening he made his first reconnaissance of the docks. There were ships a-plenty moored there, dhows from Araby and North Africa bumping against Venetian busses and roccafortes, galleys and caravels. A Dutch fluyt looked promising, and there were men working aboard, loading thick bales of silk under an armed guard. But once Ezio had recognized the cargo, he knew that the fluyt would be homeward-bound, not outward, and he needed a ship sailing east.
He wandered further, keeping to the shadows, a dark form still as lithe and as fluid as a cat. But his search yielded him nothing.
Several days and nights passed in reconnoitring. He always took all his essential equipment with him, in case he struck lucky and could get away there and then. But each foray ended with the same result. Ezio’s notoriety had marked him, and he had to go to some lengths to keep his identity secret. Even when he succeeded he found that no ship’s master was headed in precisely the direction he wanted, or that they were – for some reason – unwilling to take him, no matter how big the bribe offered. He considered returning to Bekir, but resisted this in the end. Bekir already knew too much about his intentions.
The fifth night found him again at the docks. Fewer ships now, and apart from the Night Watchmen and their crews, who passed seldom, their lanterns swinging on long poles and their swords or truncheons always at the ready, no one else was about. Ezio made his way to the most distant quaysides, where smaller vessels were tied up. The distance to the mainland was not that great. Perhaps if he could … acquire … some boat of his own, he might be able to sail the seventy-five leagues or so alone.
Cautiously he set foot on a wooden jetty, its black boards shiny with seawater, along which five small single-sail dhows were ranked, fishing boats from the smell of them, but sturdy, and two of them had all their gear stowed aboard, as far as Ezio could see.
Then the hairs on the back of his neck prickled.
Too late. Before Ezio had time to turn, he was knocked flat on his face by the weight of the man who’d thrown himself on him. Big man, that much Ezio could sense. Very big. He was pinning Ezio down by the size of his body alone; it was like struggling under a massive, muscular eiderdown. Ezio wrenched his right hand free so that he could unleash his hidden blade, but his wrist was instantly grasped in a grip of iron. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that the hand that held his wrist was cuffed with a manacle from which two broken chain links dangled.
Gathering his strength, Ezio twisted violently and suddenly to his left, digging his elb
ow hard into a part of the eiderdown that he hoped was tender. He was fortunate. The man pinioning him grunted in pain and relaxed his hold a fraction. It was enough. Following through, Ezio heaved with his shoulder and managed to roll the body off his own. Like lightning he was up on one knee, his left hand on the man’s throat, his right poised to strike.
Ezio’s moment of triumph was short. The man knocked his right hand away, the iron manacle on his left hand, similarly adorned with a couple of chain links, struck Ezio’s wrist painfully despite the protection of the hidden blade’s harness. Ezio found his left wrist now caught in another vice-like grip, which slowly but inexorably forced his hold on the man’s throat to weaken.
They rolled over, each trying to get the better of the other, putting in blows where they could, but although his assailant was bulky, he was quick, and Ezio’s blade never found a mark. At last they separated and stood, grunting, out of breath, hunched, facing each other. The man was unarmed but the iron manacles could do a lot of damage, used as weapons.
Then, from a short distance away, there was a flash of light from a lantern and a cry.
‘The Watch!’ said the man. ‘Down!’
Instinctively, Ezio followed his lead as they dived into the nearest dhow, flattening themselves in its bottom. Ezio’s mind was racing. In the flash of light from the lantern, he had seen the man’s face and recognized him. How could it be?
But there was no time to worry about that now. They could hear the footfalls of the Watch scurrying towards the jetty.
‘They saw us, may Allah blind them,’ said the man. ‘Better see to them. You ready?’
Astonished, Ezio nodded mutely in the dark.
‘I’ll finish you off once we’ve seen to them,’ the man added.
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